Just wanted to throw up a few pictures of our recent trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame! The place was awesome and we really enjoyed it. I love not only old pinball, but old em/arcade equipment as well, so this place is like a dream come true.

I visited the original PHOF about 6-7 years ago when it was in a little strip mall and the Pinball Circus was near the outside window (Desert UV!), but the new place blows it away in every aspect. Many machines are still a little dirty and under-maintained, but it's a small complaint for what you get. We loved it! Tim will just barely grunt when you speak to him, but the lady there (his wife?) was extremely nice, stored our bags for us out of the way, and loved talking about the place and any games we asked about!

Highlights were the Peppy the Clown (for Eve, her quote "I could play this all day!"), and of course I loved the uniqueness of Pinball Circus (this really should've been manufactured, even as redemption!). The Magic Baseball Game we both loved to death! The wedgeheads are the cleanest and best maintained pins in the place, and he has a wonderful collection of them! The new Sterns and 90's pins are mostly beat to hell and back, a good sign I guess! People love playing them! The ACDC premium and Magneto there were horrifically beat up. I mean, a good sign in that they get played to death, but wow... just a few months and they look like that? Couldn't believe it. Just shows you the traffic the PHOF gets (and a degree of lack of maintainence, wiped down every other day and new balls every week and they wouldn't look like that!).

But we arrived a couple minutes before opening, on Monday morning, and were the first people in the door.... an hour later the place was getting mildly full, and most of the row of new machines near the front had players at them. That's *Noon on a Monday*!! I can't imagine it on a weekend, but it gives a perspective on why the new machines are so damn dirty and abused looking, and why Tim can't do anything but grunt... if he did, he'd never stop talking to collectors/players who love the place and just want to chat. So I get it. It's an incredible place, all around!

My wife finally found the pinball her dad used to have (Drop-a-Card!). On one of our first couple dates Eve and I were playing pinball at South-a-Philly in St Augustine, and she told me her Dad used to have a pinball machine when she was a little kid in England, and it was a poker/card theme. LOL So yeah, that narrowed it down! After many guesses and descriptions, we narrowed it down to a wedgehead, but still that's a large group. I'd point them out at shows, and she'd be like "Hmmm, maybe... but I'm not sure!" And so when she came running back down the isle at the PHOF yelling "I found it!!" it was very cool. Gottlieb's Drop-a-Card was it. She played a few games on it and loved it "I remember the jester puking out the cards!" Needless to say, we'll be adding a Drop-a-Card to our wedgehead collection, eventually!

In short, vist the PHOF and take it for what it is, an amazing place! I wish there were more like it, all over the country... maybe it will happen as pinball keeps growing in popularity the way it has the past 5 years...

_{Post edited by mechslave : Ok... it won't let you link to offsite pics? going to upload...}

Pics attached, since it won't let me link to pics (weird?)...

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Here are a few bonus shots, from our wanderings around Vegas! We didn't have time for a ton of sight-seeing, but had to hit Freemont light show, Pawn Stars, Bellagio water show, and few other sights. Love Vegas!!!

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We stayed at the Excalibur (it's always been my favorite hotel there, because of how easily you can visit 5 other casino/hotels by walking). The only pin at the Excalibur was a Stern Indy, which was poorly maintained and had the Ark disabled. But I'll keep that in mind about the Riviera for our next visit!

Tim opened it up for us, and said a barely audible hello staring at the ground, and then grunted when I told him how much I loved the place, and then we didn't see him again. I think he left to go run an errand. But the lady there was overly nice and very outgoing. I've heard from others' posts that he's like talking to a wall, so I wasn't offended at all. We loved the place!

We did play some really fun video slots, and one of our favorites was the IGT Pinball slot. I'll have to find a pic of it and post. Pinball, and the Hangover, Ghostbusters and LOTR were our favorite slots...

Yeah, we saw all the cowboys and cowgirls, they were everywhere all over town!!

Tim could definitely do a bit of decorating to make the inside feel a little more like a HOF and less like a warehouse arcade. That would help it appeal to non-players/collectors/enthusiasts. But for those of us into games, it's all about the games and the place is just awesome. In fact, I kind of prefer the warehouse atmosphere (reminds me of all the warehouse digging we did in the 90's as arcade collectors). I liked looking under cloths and behind dusty games to see what was back there. Kinda fun.

My wife has a very open mind with these places and she'll always find something to have fun with. It was Peppy and Magic Baseball on this trip. She would've been happy to play those all day! Oh and she insisted we do the photo booth too, but I won't torture anyone with those pics! lol

For those visiting soon, enjoy! For those who haven't been, book a trip!! Southwest Airlines offers some crazy cheap flight/hotel packages with the MGM group of hotels... that's what we used, and from there it's only like 1.5 miles to the PHOF. $9 taxi before tip.

Oh definitely! Eve had already experienced it at SPF, but she had to do it again. She loves how wild it is. It sort of frustrates me as a player, trying to get a decent shot in, but the random orbiting and wildness of the ball is very unique as a change!

Oh I think Tim is a great guy, and look at what he's accomplished with the PHOF, what he does for charity, etc. He's an amazing guy! I've read Clay and others' take on his personality, and he's not trying to be grumpy or rude. That's just Tim, and he's a great guy who can't stand around and talk to collectors all day. No problem at all.

I do have a second Stunt Pilot in need of major restoration that I was going to talk to him about donating, but he disappeared before I got a chance to make a third attempt at talking to him! It'd fit in perfectly with the non-pinball em arcade stuff he has operating there, which is worth the visit by itself! Oh well, maybe next trip he'll be more talkative!

Magneto is hard to say how bad it is, bc it's just really dirty! But the Woverine magnet is a pure mushroom, raised at least a 1/3" above the play field, and concave around it. And just super dirty all over. I didn't play it.

AcDc looks the way you'd expect a really rough condition 90s pin to look, which had been played around the block and back. Clear chipped all around the hell window, cannon inoperable, ramp entrances broken and chipped away, dirt upon dirty. War Machine shots would not make a full loop, no matter how well they were hit, targets not resetting/broken, etc. It was trashed and in need of a major overhaul. After seeing and playing the AcDc at the 1up a few weeks ago ( which also is a high volume location) it can be safely assumed the one at PHOF just hasn't been maintained at all, and maybe never cleaned or had the balls replaced. It's a shame really. Kept clean, with new balls, and it would never look like that after less than a year.

Pinball Circus is still there, and plays very good. Getting to the top is difficult because of the strength of the little flipper on level 3. You basically need a rebound shot to get it up there. But it should be dramatic to get the top! Getting to level 2 and 3 is easy and you'll do it over and over.

The show hosts were not there! We had ask cab drivers about the place, and every one had said it's tiny, don't get your hopes up, it's a hole in the wall, etc. So we had low expectations and they were exceeded. Very nice place, not as tiny as they were saying, and it wasn't crowded (we went about 1030am on Sunday morning). You can take pictures anywhere but in the direction of the area where the hosts do sit if they're in. The black sign with red type is the sign that says "No photos in this direction" you can see in the one picture. I bought a shirt for a friend, and my wife bought a "I heart Chumlee" shirt! The show, like all reality shows, is fake as all get out, but I like the item history and hearing evaluations nevertheless, and the corny setups with Chums and the gang.

I'd suggest you reserve judgement until you play a properly maintained ACDC, because that one is nowhere near "good shape." It's terrible, dirty, broken ramp entrances, and tape over the areas which began to chip away around the window. And no cannon. The shots don't shoot properly, either. The War Machine shot would not go around (one of my fav shots). Just too dirty. Seems like a post was loose, too. And the targets had problems resetting. Basically the worst maintained ACDC (or any less than one year old pin) I've played.

Try playing a nice, working ACDC, with a clean playfield, unbroken ramps, untaped playfield, and operating cannon... you might like it better!

Definitely not. It's an awesome place to play a wide variety of pins and very rare antique coinop equipment. I highly recommend it!

You know I'm pretty sure Challenger was working but I didn't try it out. I'd played the heck out of one at PAPA just a few months ago so I tried other stuff I hadn't played recently. Very very cool pin though!